NHM Alive Review

NHM Alive tries to distill the wonderment and discovery of London’s Natural History Museum into app form — and mostly pulls it off. Sir David Attenborough acts as narrator and guide through the experience, which includes a mixture of photos, descriptive text, CGI stills, and videos that shine a light on the current scientific consensus regarding a cast of 10 prehistoric creatures. Developer Colossus Productions clearly made an effort here to instill a playful, discovery-driven element to the experience, but it’s not clear just what there is to discover — or how — and that makes the app seem frustratingly simple at first. Thankfully, there’s a wealth of detail lurking beneath the surface.

A day mode presents the standard museum fare, using a full-screen photo of the creature’s skeleton in its exhibit paired with a menu that lets you read an interesting primer on its discovery, life, and cause of extinction. The Dippy and American Mastodon exhibits also feature a neat 360-degree view option. If you happen to visit the museum in person, you can search for special symbol codes hidden around the building that can be used to unlock video clips in the app. Even if you can’t make a quick trip to London, though, there’s loads of extra content to discover.

Night mode, which you can switch to with a downward swipe, is where NHM Alive gets really cool. The exhibits seem at first to be cloaked in darkness, but hidden away is a world of wonder. Activating a flashlight reveals the creatures in all their CG glory — replete with lifelike animations and sounds, plus a huge sense of scale — while Attenborough talks you through the key facts. Night mode also includes a selection of quick factoids that you can swipe through on each creature, as well as additional photos, interactive 3D models of them walking or flying, and videos that provide a fascinating glimpse into the process of bringing these long-extinct specimens to life.

The bottom line. Despite a few design missteps, NHM Alive presents a wonderful and imaginative complement to 10 of the most compelling exhibits in the Natural History Museum’s collection of extinct creatures.